COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State women’s soccer team traveled to Morgantown, W.Va., Sunday for a game against the formidable West Virginia Mountaineers with the end result a scoreless tie after 110 minutes and two overtimes of work. Ohio State is now 1-0-1 on the season and West Virginia, ranked 16th by Soccer America, is 0-0-1.

The game was Ohio State’s second in 48 hours. Friday night the team opened on a positive note with a dominant, 2-0, win over Bowling Green before nearly 900 fans at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium. Ohio State outshot BGSU, 27-3, including 10-0 in shots on goal.

The members of the team knew they would be facing a much different opponent, a much better opponent and on the road, no less, in West Virginia. The Mountaineers are the defending BIG EAST American Division champion and have played in nine consecutive NCAA tournaments. The Buckeyes’ effort was impressive.

“This was a great starting point to have such a game against a quality opponent early on and to perform as well as we did,” Ohio State coach Lori Walker said. “West Virginia has a very solid starting lineup. They are big, strong and fast. I thought we did a tremendous job of coming into their stadium and really playing with our hearts on the field.

“We had a nice game of possession but both teams had their moments in the game. Both back lines played extremely well. Much of the game was played in the midfield and we had our moments where we were dangerous and really competed as a team.”

West Virginia, led by 2008 All-American Carolyn Blank, had 13 shots but none on goal while Ohio State totaled eight shots with two on goal. Blank had four shots, including a header in the second overtime. Ashley Bowyer, Courtney Jenkins and Tiffany Cameron led Ohio State with two shots apiece. Lauren Granberg and Lauren Steuer had the team’s shots on goal.

Each team had four shots at halftime. Bowyer had two headers that sailed high of the goal. Neither goalkeeper – Ohio State’s Lauren Robertson and West Virginia’s Kerri Butler – was forced to make a save in the first 45. There were nine fouls called and Ohio State led in corner kicks, 3-0.

Heading into the first overtime, WVU led in shots, 10-6, and in corners, 4-3. WVU added two more shot attempts in the first OT, but Ohio State’s Steuer had the only shot on goal, this coming inside of two minutes to play.

Courtney Jenkins fired a shot wide in the 105th minute and Blank shot high in the 108th minute for the only attempts in the second overtime period.

So two games into the season, Ohio State is unbeaten at 1-0-1 and will have four days to rest and prepare before hosting Ohio University Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium. A game against Pitt Sunday at 1 p.m. will follow.

Game Notes and Good Stuff:

What a nice team effort! A total of 17 players got into the game for Ohio State and 16 played 39 or more minutes.

GK Lauren Robertson has 19 career shutouts and is just four away from breaking Amber Barnes’ all-time school record of 22.5 shutouts between 1997-2000.

Robertson has not had to make a save in two games this season. Her 250 career saves rank third all-time at Ohio State.

West Virginia defeated Ohio State, 3-0, in the 2003 NCAA tournament, the last time the two teams played.

This is the first decision other than a win for West Virginia in home openers. The Mountaineers were 4-0 at home in season openers and they had won five consecutive season openers overall.

Ohio State has opened with two shutouts for the fourth time in its 17 years of women’s soccer. The other years with back-to-back shutouts to open the season came in 1993, 1998 and 2006.

Defenders Danielle Scoliere, Cassie Dickerson and Colleen Brady each played all 110 minutes.

Liz Sullivan, who isn’t being rushed back into action after a spring knee injury, played all 20 minutes of the two overtime sessions. She was one of the team’s top two defenders last season as a freshman.

Ohio State committed 19 fouls vs. 12 by West Virginia.

Ohio State started the same 11 players against WVU as it did in its opener vs. Bowling Green: Taz Robertson at GK; defenders Lauren Beachy, Brady, Dickerson and Scoliere; midfielders Ashley Bowyer, Courtney Jenkins, Lauren Steuer and Tiffany Cameron; and midfielders Caitlyn Martin and Lauren Granberg.